Refrigerators recently available in the market have dispensers capable of dispensing ice or water in the refrigerators to the outside without opening doors of the refrigerators. Since the dispensers can allow water or ice in the refrigerator to be dispensed without opening the doors, there are advantages in that they can prevent cold air within the refrigerator from leaking out and also provide a user with convenience of use of the refrigerator. U.S. Pat. No. 6,082,130 discloses an example of a refrigerator having such a dispenser.
FIG. 1 shows a schematic view of the configuration of a conventional refrigerator having a dispenser and icemaker, as described in the '130 patent. As shown in this figure, water supplied from a water source such as a faucet is introduced into a main body 1 of a refrigerator through a supply tube D1 and then purified while passing through a filter 3 installed at a rear side of the main body 1 of the refrigerator. The purified water is supplied to an icemaker 4 or introduced into a water tank 5. Further, a feed valve 6 is installed between the filter 3, icemaker 4 and water tank 5 so that the supply of water into the icemaker 4 and water tank 5 can be controlled.
The icemaker 4 and the water tank 5 are connected to a dispenser 7 through connection tubes D2 and D3, respectively. Ice and water stored in the icemaker and water tank are supplied to the dispenser 7 via the connection tubes D2 and D3, respectively. A user can receive the water and ice from the dispenser 7 through a dispensing port (not shown) provided on a door 2.
According to a prior art as described above, cold water is supplied from the water tank 5 to the dispenser 7. Therefore, there is a problem in that only cold water can be provided through the dispenser 7.
In addition, since the conventional filter 3 cannot remove the lime that produce scale on inner surfaces of the connection tubes D2 and D3, the scale may substantially grow on the inner surfaces of pipes in the refrigerator. Thus, many problems are likely to occur. For example, if scale occurs and grows in the pipes corresponding to water-feeding passages in the refrigerator, there are problems in that after-sale services cannot be easily provided on the pipes and possibility of corrosion on inner parts of the refrigerator can also be increased.
Further, if the scale grow on and peels off from the inner surfaces of the pipes, it is likely to be recognized as if a lump of foreign materials exists in the water or ice supplied from the refrigerator. Therefore, this may result in the decreased reliability of products to the consumers. Furthermore, since heat conductivity of parts in the refrigerator is reduced due to the scale produced within the connection tubes D2 and D3, electric power consumption may be increased.
Moreover, when a heater is installed in the dispenser 7, the aforementioned generation and growth of scale are greatly accelerated, and the above problems due to the generation of scale may become much severer.